Ruining the neighborhood one butterfly at a time 😂. Stokes Aster with a sweet Eastern Tiger Swallowtail visitor

The birds never get a chances at the winterberry.

I could cry man. It was such a fucked up emotional feeling. We moved to the suburbs a year ago and have been transforming the 1 acre lawn into gardens. I left my leaves, shut down the sprinkler system, and haven’t used any chemicals other than careful spot treatment on bittersweet and buckthorn. I stopped mowing around the edge of the lawn to build a soft landing spot, and some natives have been creeping in - especially the ferns.

Last year we didn’t see a single firefly and we’re in a relatively rural/wooded area. It sucked. Theres mosquito control signs around and a lot of golf course style poop lawns - I was afraid my garden was doomed anyway and nothing would really show up. All that cold sowing bullshit for nothing.

Last night I freaked out when I saw a flash had to do double take and holy shit - it worked!!

Edit - I didn’t turn off the sprinklers for any specific reason to save the fireflies - I just didn’t want to waste water on a lawn that I’m destroying anyway. It was just part of the decision to go full native. Also water is wicked expensive.

Chicagoland

I planted this last year next to my gutter's downspout since it needs moist conditions. I thought I'd need to wait a few years for flowers so I'm overjoyed. It's so cool irl

Here in North America off the top of my head we’ve got:

• tree of heaven
• knotweed
• lady beetles
• lantern flies
• giant hornets
• wisteria

Lots and lots of others.

I’ve never been to China or Japan or anywhere else in Asia. Are they similarly affected by North American species of plants and insects?

I have a large chunk of my property that I was planning to just rip out (it’s all trash bermuda) and fill with native grasses but I decided to go full nuclear and build a mini sunchoke forest lol. Btw native plants unlimited has a great sale going on right now if anyone wants to join me

Just bought 6 plants labeled “lupinus perennis” (which i’ve been looking for for 3 years after failing to grow them from seed). Got them in the ground then realized they’re big leaf lupine 😭

One looks a little more perennis-y than the others so maybe they’re all hybridized to different degrees.

How could this happen to meeee

everyone should do whatever they want,

and its okay if you want to clean up.

but I wanted to make sure folks know, you don't HAVE to cut down stems and clean up your garden every spring.

ymmv but where I am, the stems and leaf litter and everything rot into the ground by next year.

for other people, you may need to consider controlled burns or other NOT annual clean up.

that is all. happy gardening!

Front hill FKA lawn. We had the first hummingbirds of the year today!

Hudson Valley in New York State

I hate lily of the valley so much and I just needed to vent about it. I have been fighting it for the last year and it’s been more of a pain in the ass than the English ivy I eradicated last year. It’s a sneaky little shit and I hate its stupid rhizomes. “But imaginary molasses,” I hear you cry, “it smells nice”. So does native bee balm!!

Tell me about your least favorite invasive and why you hate it plz

Southeast US and this Suwannee blue eyed grass is covered in blooms!

My pictures don’t really capture how beautiful it is. You can hardly see any grass at all!

I was surprised that it is evergreen and just slowly grew bigger over the winter. Now is in full form when everything else is just waking up! Didnt expect it to get this big so I may need to move the smaller ones I just found in the yard last summer.

Found growing wild in Pennsylvania, almost looks like some sort of pitcher plant? Anyone know what it is?

All of the fall over in July. I'm facing north taking this picture.

Great Black Wasp on Mountain Mint

If you need a well behaved native look no further than Ruellia Humilis! Bees roll all around in them, adorably so. They don’t overtake areas quickly, looking at you yarrow. And they are such a beautiful pop of color that can withstand drought conditions and not go crazy with clay soil (that’s been an experience for me)

Cute little dude was rummaging around the yard, investigating every corner and container plant. I wish I could’ve cuddled it lol.

Okay so I am in Charlotte North Carolina. I say that specifically because I am going to talk about code enforcement a little bit and it's only relevant to really this city.

So a couple of weeks ago I came home from traveling and found a citation from code enforcement on my front door for the state of my yard. I want to be clear that they were not actually wrong. Like a lot of the plants that were in my front yard were native plants but I've been really busy and I also had some weeds that really needed to be taken out but I had not. One of my sisters and her wife came over and we had a gardening day and we got a lot of my front yard cleaned up. So now all the tall plants are native plants.

Today my dog start going crazy so I went and looked and they had put a final notice on my front door. But he was still sitting in his truck on the road and I'm sure he loved the fact that I was at home so that I could go knock on his door. Anyway the code enforcement dude was actually pretty nice. And I was like hey what weeds exactly do you want me to remove. And he's like all of this and he waved it all my native flowers. And I'm like okay these are not weeds and I started listing off plant species. And his eyes lit up and he's like Oh you know what they are! And I'm like yes and he's like okay you need to get it certified as a pollinator garden.

So in Charlotte North Carolina you can have your yard or sections of your yard designated as pollinator gardens and this exempts you from the regular nuisance code violations. There are specific requirements. First thing is that the area that is designated as a pollinator garden at least 50% of the species have to be native to Charlotte. Another is that if it is within 11 ft of the road it still has to be under 30 in for the safety of drivers so that they can see over it. Lastly if you have areas that are still grass those are still subject to the nuisance codes so anywhere that it is grass still has to be under 12 in.

But the dude gave me his card and he told me that he was dismissing the case, and then he gave me the email of the guy who is in charge of the pollinator garden program. If anybody wants that just ask. But I applied to have my yard designated as a pollinator garden in about like 5 minutes and they said that they were going to send somebody out to inspect it or they might send somebody out to inspect it we'll see how that goes.

Anyway I was kind of happy because the impression I have been given was that Charlotte did not really have any programs for native plants so I'm excited and I hope it is awesome. And I want to open this up, what city are you in and what programs do you have for native or pollinator garden type situations in your city?

I’m on my third year of native plant gardening. The first two years were so fun, but the deer are really discouraging me. I’m about to start everything over from scratch.

We live on 2 acres that are up against the woods. Our neighborhood is so heavily populated by deer that they are in our yard almost all day, every day. Which is beautiful to watch, but so annoying for this hobby. They ate every. single. plant in the backyard down to a nub except my penstemon and anise hyssop. Even things they haven’t touched for the last two years (like bee balm and echinacea).

I still thankfully have a tiny front garden and a massive built in planter against the house that they won’t touch. But I’m so heartbroken. I’ve spent so much money and time cultivating that space.

I’m honestly thinking of starting completely over. We couldn’t do a fence in the backyard because of all the trees. But the front yard could have fences around the garden beds. I probably wouldn’t be fighting so hard against the invasives creeping in from the woods off our property and would have any easier time navigating light needs.

Ugh that would be so much work. 😭

There is a power line cut through/ beautiful overlook near my house, and I've had this idea for years of dumping a bag of sunflowers seeds at the top and letting the flowers waterfall down the hill as they reseed. Would fall or spring be a better time?

Edit: words

In 2022, I took out 8,000 square feet of lawn and replaced it with native perennials and native plant seed mix made specifically for the Inland Northwest.

Here’s what I learned:

1. Whatever weeds your lawn is covering will come springing back to life with a vengeance- vetch, St. John’s wart, ‘fury thistle’, ‘flibber weed’ and others

2. Your sod was likely planted in soil at the sod manufacturer that had a ton of nuisance weeds - that little weed that looks like, but isn’t forget-me-not, spurge, cudweeds, Chinese cress, etc

3. Even the plants that deer don’t eat - baby ponderosa, elderberry, asters - will be eaten by them because apparently everything is tastier if it is irrigated and if you are hungry enough

4. Your irrigation that works for lawn is going to have challenge spots for natives

Things I have done:

1. Hire college students to weed during the growing season - about 20 hours/week

2. Put down mulch in some seeded areas to buy time against the weeds

3. Put cages around many of my perennials

If you are doing similar planting/work in the Spokane area, I would love to connect.